


Spaces between us (Never let go till we're gone)

by targaryen_melodrama



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, POV Sam Wilson, Pre Battle of Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/targaryen_melodrama/pseuds/targaryen_melodrama
Summary: “We have to stop meeting like this,” Sam says, and though the room is pitch dark, he knows T’Challa is smiling.Or would be smiling under normal circumstances, and Sam hopes that even the threat descending on Wakanda doesn’t prevent T’Challa from smiling at his bad jokes.
Relationships: T'Challa/Sam Wilson (Marvel)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	Spaces between us (Never let go till we're gone)

**Author's Note:**

> I (finally) read [The Favor of the King ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7728694) by [thingswithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings), got inspired and tried my best to write T'Challa, whose voice has been so damn hard to pin down.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Sam says, and though the room is pitch dark, he knows T’Challa is smiling. Or would be smiling under normal circumstances, and Sam hopes that even the threat descending on Wakanda doesn’t prevent T’Challa from smiling at his bad jokes. 

“If I recall correctly, you asked for this meeting, Sam. I’m simply obliging you.” There is warmth in T’Challa’s voice, and something else Sam can’t pinpoint, and as he tries to figure it out, a dim yellow light appears. 

There are shadows on T’Challa’s face, but finally seeing him after a sixteen hour day full of nothing but training and strategizing is like taking the first sip of a warm, strong cup of coffee while heading to work on a cold and snowy morning. 

“Is that what this is?” Sam asks, raising a brow as he moves towards the wide desk where T’Challa sits. The disappointment he’d felt when he’d first walked into the “King’s chambers” only to find some two-hundred book and a work desk feels a lifetime away now. T’Challa had assured him at some point that he did have a more intimate bedroom in his home. Sam had never seen it, so he’d started seeing the large sparsely decorated room as, well, he and T’Challa’s version of home. Not that it matters. Sam would rather jump off a cliff without his wings than admit to having thoughts that corny. “You’ve been... _obliging me_ for the past three months?”

“I believe they call it diplomacy,” T’Challa says, and Sam’s glad he can definitely tell T’Challa’s smiling the small _I think you’re a little ridiculous but I like it_ smile that makes Sam weakening knees a little weaker. This close, Sam can see determination in T’Challa’s face, and, if he looks a little closer, the fatigue he’s way too good at concealing. 

They stare at each other for a minute, which borders on awkward, but only because of the elephant in the room. Sam can usually handle silence but somethingーeverything, reallyーabout T’Challa makes him squirm. 

“You think this is what it felt like on the Titanic?” 

“In our current scenario, I suppose Thanos is the iceberg?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Making you...Rose?”

“Are you serious?” Sam waves his right hand in a wide circle. “You’re so clearly Rose.”

“Because of her wealth?” T’Challa leans back in his chair. “That comparison is a bit lazy, no?”

“Not just the wealth, though there _is_ a lot of that. There are...other things,” Sam says as he frantically looks for a word that’s not _uptight_. “You’re also, ah, conventional and a little resistant to change, at least at first. I’m theーwell not poor, but poor in comparison.” This damn metaphor’s gotten away from him so fucking fast. “I’m the not-quite-as-rich handsome man who’s in your life to shake things up a little. And I can literally teach you how to fly.”

Well, there. Sam forgets how to speak English around T’Challa, and sure, there could be plenty of cute, not-quite-as-rich outlaws that could be vying for T’Challa’s attention, but can any of them _fly_? Sam, one, every other potential suitor, zero.

T’Challa seems to seriously consider this for a minute, before nodding once, condeading the point. “There must be better scenarios,” he still says. “I don’t think I like the idea of you teaching me how to spit.”

“Sure, but that’s the one I got,” Sam says, shrugging. “A little imagination goes a long way.”

T’Challa raises an eyebrow. “Picturing us as two white Americans on a boat in the 1920s already requires a lot of imagination.”

“I don’t know, I think long red hair would suit you.”

“It might. I hadーyou would call them locksーwhen I was a child, and my mother says I was adorable.”

Sam would like to see T’Challa with locks, but he likes his hair as it is now. It brings out the cheekbones Sam’s been thinking about kissing for a few weeks now. 

They’re quiet again, and though Sam knows he’s the one who has to break it, he suddenly really doesn’t want to. There isn’t really a movie metaphor that can help him say _we might die tomorrow and I know we don’t have a relationship but I felt like we needed a private goodbye anyway_. And the thing is, Sam suddenly realizes, they’ve never really talked about anything serious while it was just the two of them. Discussions of Sam’s citizenship status and the fallout of the Accords were left for the day time. 

Alone like this in T’Challa’s bedroom/office, they had first started talking about whatever new thing Sam had learned about Wakanda, or about something in American or Black American culture T’Challa hadn’t heard off, and then, slowly but surely, about their respective childhoods and families. They’d talked to each other about their fathers once, but that’s as intense it had gotten.

Why did Sam think he’d suddenly be able to change that? 

“It is getting late, Sam,” T’Challa says quietly and Sam startles. He hadn’t noticed that T’Challa had gotten up from his desk. He stands next to his desk a few steps away from Sam, hands in his pockets, though he looks anything but casual. 

“I know,” Sam says. 

He can’t says the words. He can’t leave. 

“Is thereーis there anything you needed?”

_To not be such a coward about this._

“I’d love to get my hands on a time machine,” Sam says, trying for casual. He clears his throat. “But really, I justーI came to say goodbye. One last time before the ship sinks.” 

That’s...honest, at least. 

“You did that already,” T’Challa points out, not unkindly. “At dinner. Two days ago.”

“I did, but itーnot like this. Not...not just us two.” Sam looks down, not wanting to see T’Challa’s reaction. They’ve been an _us_ in Sam’s mind for a while now. 

“Sam, Iー”

“I couldn’t say it before. It’s just that IーI’m living on your dime, here. You wereーyou’re doing more than enough for us, and sometimes I thought that maybe we couldーthat there was, you know, something in the cards for us, but I couldn’t say it. You have obligations, and I’m a guest here, so I wouldn’t have said anything. But I might not make it tomorrow, and I wanted to say goodbye properly.”

Sam still hasn’t looked up. He bites his lip, trying not to add anything to his weird, rushed little confession. He needs to shut up and let T’Challa say something. Anything. 

“It doesn’t end well.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t end well for the passengers of the Titanic.”

Sam smiles even as his heart sinks. “Guess not. Though there was this cartoon version I watched as a kid, with talking birds and all. _They_ had a happy ending. Not realistic, though, is it?”

Sam moves away from T’Challa’s desk, relieved and hurt and disappointed and slightly embarrassed. Their conversations had been one of the highlights of his stay here, a distraction from the fact that he hadn’t seen his friends and family in months and might never again, and T’Challa had been...obliging him. 

He’d said the words out loud at least. He’d leave tomorrow morning with a few regrets, but this wouldn’t be one of them. 

“Sam,” T’Challa calls and Sam stops halfway to the door. “Let me...say a few words? Please?”

Sam nods, then realizes T’Challa might not see him as well in the dim light. “Yeah.” 

Sam hears T’Challa walk towards him and he’s suddenly out of breath, his heart beating out of synch. 

“I wish you had...said something before tonight,” he says and Sam’s heart starts acting up even more. “This is what I meantーit’s what I should have said earlier, when I said the story did not end well. I’m afraid as of tonight, the same might be true for us.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Sam hears T’Challa move again, and when he feels T’Challa behind him, barely an inch between them, he’s pretty sure he stops breathing. “We aren’tーbefore Thanos, this wasn’t a sinking ship.” They weren’t in the greatest shape either, Sam knows. He’d only learned a month ago that T’Challa was single, two weeks ago that he was interested in men, and he still doesn’t know whether a relationship between a Wakandan king and an exiled, outlawed, former airman of the United States Air Force could ever actually happen. 

"I do have obligations, and you _are_ a guest here, Sam. I don’t want to do anything to make my guests feel...uncomfortable. How could I ask more of you, more than what you were already giving, and make sure you didn’t feel...obliged?”

Before this silence can stretch for too long, Sam turns around and faces T’Challa. His dark brown eyes are unsure, and though Sam’s rarely seen them this troubled, he isn’t worried. This is the room where T’Challa wears his a simple long-sleeved black shirt and black track pants, where Sam visits him in the grey sweatshirt and black sweatpants he sleeps in, where they share stories and silence. Where Sam, a few times a week, lets himself pretend that T’Challa, the King of Wakanda, the charming, mysterious man providing him food and shelter considers him a friend. Maybe more. 

“I come here every other night, T’Challa,” Sam says with a wry smile. “I don’t think I could’ve been any more obvious about feeling... way more than obliged.”

T’Challa smiles back, though his eyes aren’t clear yet. “And I let you in every other night. You’ve always been more than an obligation.” He moves closer to Sam still and takes Sam’s hand in his. “What do you want, Sam?”

“Just...just to be here. With you. Before we hit the iceberg.”

“I can do that.” He brings his other hand up to Sam’s jaw, tilts his face up. He kisses Sam’s lips gently, then moves up, kissing both cheeks and Sam’s forehead before kissing his lips again.

“What else do you want, Sam? What can I give you?”

“You can keep doing that,” Sam sighs against T’Challa’s lips. “You can let me stay.”

T’Challa leans back, but his hands are still cradling Sam’s face. “Did I not make myself clear enough earlier?” he asks, a slight frown on his face. “I already have, Sam. I have for a long time.”

When T’Challa kisses him again, Sam lets the rest of his defenses fall. His storyーtheir storyーprobably won’t get a happy ending, but Sam’ll be okay without one if he gets to hold on to the feeling of T’Challa’s soft lips and broad, sure hands slowly, gently, completely taking him apart. 

**Author's Note:**

> The "we're about to die so let's confess our love to each other" saga continues and I don't know how to stop it. 
> 
> Got a flashback while writing about Titanic and remembered that 'cartoon version' of Titanic, [Titanic: The legend goes on ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic:_The_Legend_Goes_On), a movie that I loved as a kid. (Not sure how well it holds up, though.)
> 
> Yes, the title is from My heart will go on by Céline Dion. No I didn't have a choice. Yes, I am slightly ashamed. 
> 
> I am on [Tumblr](http://targaryenmelodrama.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andrea_b_tweets) !


End file.
